Firemint Real Racing Followup Questions (no April release)

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by arn, Mar 19, 2009.

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  1. arn

    arn Administrator
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    Apr 19, 2008
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    This is for readers to ask followup questions to our Firemint interview.

    http://toucharcade.com/2009/03/19/firemint-talks-about-real-racing-and-reveals-new-details-screenshots-video/

    Alex and Rob of Firemint are about to hop on a plane from Australia to San Francisco so will not be able to answer questions immediately. They have promised they will check in this weekend to provide answers. So, in the meanwhile, feel free to ask any additional questions about their upcoming title: Real Racing.

     
  2. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    I want to know more about the Cloudcell API's. The Real Racing trailer without a doubt knocked my socks off, but the potential for Cloudcell technology in future games is absolutely amazing to me. Is Cloudcell going to be open source, able to be licensed by other developers, or exclusive to Firemint?

    Can you tell us any more about what it's capable of, and your future plans for the service/API? One of my favorite thing about the game Skate was the ability to share replays. I have no doubt this functionality in Real Racing is going to be unbelievably popular.

    I honestly didn't think half the things you guys have shown in the Real Racing trailer were even possible with iPhone the hardware and SDK. [​IMG]
     
  3. dannys95

    dannys95 Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
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    #3 dannys95, Mar 19, 2009
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2009
    Hey Guys looking great but I have a few questions,


    1. In previous videos we saw awesome graphics. Although they still look good, what happened? They look downgraded......
    2. Will you be able to customize your car somehow? Like colors, parts, wheels, etc?
    3. How will drifting be? Fastlane has overdone it and other racers don't have any drift at all. Will there be special courses for drifting?
    4. Speaking of special course for drifting. Will there be anything like in NFS (drag, drift, etc)?
    5. Any sort of lite version planned?
    6. And one last thing. Could you post a list of all the songs in Real Racing somewhere here or in your site? I'm loving them!

    Thanks!! Can't wait.
     
  4. THEDeliriumTrigger

    THEDeliriumTrigger Well-Known Member

    Dec 4, 2008
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    Both of the above users bring up good questions, i second both of them
     
  5. Coral

    Coral Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
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    Great interview. The game looks really good.

    Many of today's racing games have a focus on, or element of, drifting. Will Real Racing have drifting in it? Will drifting be an essential element of the gameplay?

    Edit: Danny beat me to the question about drifting.
     
  6. Ph4ntom4

    Ph4ntom4 Well-Known Member

    Jan 10, 2009
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    Another question:

    Q: You say about integrating the online aspect with Facebook and Twitter, and not building your own system for doing it, how is this going to work because not everyone has or is willing to set up a Twitter or Facebook account to play one game online.

    BTW, my guess about the downgraded graphics is that the tech demos were running on a pc but using the iPhone display and controls. But now they've had to reduce the graphics because the iPhone can't handle it, there were still some points in the video with quite poor FPS.
     
  7. Diablohead

    Diablohead Well-Known Member

    Jan 19, 2009
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    Freelancer, PC game developer
    I'd like to hear more about this youtube replay feature thing, will it allow a whole 5 lap race to be uploaded or only small segments? etc.
     
  8. arta

    arta Well-Known Member

    Feb 14, 2009
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    Which type of handling is it: arcadey or simlike?
     
  9. salsamd

    salsamd Moderator
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    Nov 1, 2008
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    As above.

    Also, any plans to integrate interactive weather effects, eg, rain than affects road traction?
     
  10. nizy

    nizy Well-Known Member

    Seems like this is going for the "sim" racing experience (which has been missing from app store thus far). As such i feel the physics engine will need to be great to achieve that.

    1. What sort of effects are included in the physics model? Will things like tyre grip, aerodynamics, centrifugal affects, downforce, drag, fuel - weight etc be modeled accurately?
    2. Is there car damage?
    3. Will there be fuel consumption/pit stops?
    4. Will other AI cars make mistakes or try and take you out?
    5. Can we play music from ipod, with SFX?
    6. Future of real racing - OS 3.0 - DLC, multiplayer improvements - will 3.0 affect the future direction of the game? If so, how?
    7. Are the cars and tracks unique or based on real life versions?
    8. Will each car have a different cockpit?
    9. Will each car have different properties?
    10. Will the game feature car mods - unlock better tyres, turbos, brakes etc?
     
  11. darwiniandude

    darwiniandude Well-Known Member

    Nov 1, 2008
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    Poor devs... being asked all the tricky questions :)

    When can we expect to be able to buy it?
     
  12. salsamd

    salsamd Moderator
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    Nov 1, 2008
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    "...However, it is now at a point where we can announce an April release."
     
  13. firemint

    firemint Well-Known Member

    Feb 5, 2009
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    Making games :D
    Melbourne, Australia
    Answers soon...

    Hi everyone! As Arn mentioned we'll soon be getting on a plane for a rather long trip (17 hours, yikes!). Still got to pack our bags and take care of last minute details so unfortunately we won't be able to answer your questions as quickly as we'd like to. I just wanted to quickly pop in and thank you for the excellent questions so far, and to let you know that as soon as we've settled in SF we'll be back to answer as much as we can! Hopefully Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning SF time, depending on jetlag ;)
     
  14. gscal

    gscal Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2009
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    This game blows the socks off Asphalt's graphics. Looks like it'll be a great game, can't wait!
     
  15. dannys95

    dannys95 Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
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    Yikes 17 hours!!
     
  16. touch32g

    touch32g Well-Known Member

    Feb 6, 2009
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    is their online muliplayer like in raging thunder
     
  17. WiseWeasel

    WiseWeasel New Member

    Feb 4, 2009
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    Or even just local WiFi multiplayer? I'm talkin' trading paint, not comparing times...
     
  18. Scott30

    Scott30 Well-Known Member

    Mar 19, 2009
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    Im looking forward to this game it looks like a Codemasters type racing game from the consoles which despite alot of racing games on the iphone I think is lacking.
     
  19. dannys95

    dannys95 Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
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    OK it's Saturday; I hope they come online soon. :)
     
  20. firemint

    firemint Well-Known Member

    Feb 5, 2009
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    Making games :D
    Melbourne, Australia
    Answers (Part 1)

    Hi everyone, thanks for your patience - here are our answers!

    Q: I want to know more about the Cloudcell API's. The Real Racing trailer without a doubt knocked my socks off, but the potential for Cloudcell technology in future games is absolutely amazing to me. Is Cloudcell going to be open source, able to be licensed by other developers, or exclusive to Firemint?

    A: Cloudcell.com is a proprietary technology platform that grew out of our early Real Racing development. When we started to think about the social networking features we wanted to include in Real Racing, we realised that we wanted these features in all of Firemint’s games. Cloudcell.com was designed from the ground up to be extensible on both ends. That means that we'll be able to "plug in" new social network APIs on one side as they become available, and new games on the other side, with a custom cloudcel.coml site for each game in the middle to tie them together. We don't have any plans to make it open source at this time, but we have already integrated it into one other game as well. There's no technical reason why other developers wouldn't be able to offer cloudcell.com functionality in their games, we'd just need to figure out the commercial details of how that would work.


    Q: You say about integrating the online aspect with Facebook and Twitter, and not building your own system for doing it, how is this going to work because not everyone has or is willing to set up a Twitter or Facebook account to play one game online.

    A: You don't HAVE to set up any links you don't want to, it's all optional. You'll still be able to use all the game-specific web site features like leaderboards and league play. The social network integration is another layer on top of that so for example, you can compare your best times against your Facebook friends.


    Q: I'd like to hear more about this youtube replay feature thing, will it allow a whole 5 lap race to be uploaded or only small segments? etc.

    A: You'll be able to link your cloudcell.com account to YouTube. It's a straightforward process and you don't need to tell us your YouTube password (the linking happens on the YouTube site). Once you've connected up your personal channel, you'll be able to upload video replays from in-game. YouTube limits videos to 10 minutes length so that's the longest replay you'd be able to upload. We don't impose any limits at our end.


    Q: In previous videos we saw awesome graphics. Although they still look good, what happened? They look downgraded......

    A: It’s hard to answer this, because the game on device is looking better than ever. Screenshots and videos are something different from the actual game. Some of those screenshots look very unflattering compared to the real thing. The videos are probably more representative than screenshots but they suffer from their own problems.
    There have been occasional mentions of frame rate problems in the video. This kind of makes me cry, because the problem is with the HD video playback in Flash and often Firefox, not the game. My computer cannot play back HD video from YouTube at more than 10 or 15 fps, and sometimes it is really choppy. Most computers can play it back fine, I think it is related to Firefox and Flash 9. This is not about Internet bandwidth, it is about the video playback engine itself. I can tell you that the game is running smoother than the video, even when the video is playing back as intended.
    Also, while speaking of frame rate, our 1080i video camera cannot effectively capture at more than 25 fps because of the interlacing. The game however gets fps of up to 40. The more technical people here will understand the potential aliasing issues this introduces in the video.
    Another example of unflattering shots is when you capture dynamic reflective lighting in a screenshot. A screenshot captures only one moment in time, but it is the movement of light over a surface that impresses.
    There are other issues too, like color balance etc. Long and short of it: We don't have the online tools to demonstrate to you how smoothly the game runs and how beautiful the graphics and effects are on device. Like a photographer, sometimes you can capture what you are seeing and experiencing, sometimes you can't.
    There is so much to talk about on this subject that maybe I should blog about it sometime. We have gone to lengths to provide raw assets, whether we consider them representative or not. So we are frustrated to see some games provide off-device screenshots and say "don't worry it is 'representative'". We are giving you raw stuff, as high def as we can get it, because we don’t want to use those tricks.


    Q: Will you be able to customize your car somehow? Like colors, parts, wheels, etc?

    A: In the first release you'll be able to choose from a number of pre-customised cars, rather than assembling one yourself.


    Q: How will drifting be? Fastlane has overdone it and other racers don't have any drift at all. Will there be special courses for drifting?

    A: Since we're aiming for an objective racing experience where players compare times, there won't be special drift courses. Drift racing has a subjective element where you can win or lose depending on your style and panache. There's a certain amount of drifting that is a part of racing car physics so in that sense you can drift a little. If you want full on drifting, I'd recommend one of our Fast and Furious games!


    Q: Any sort of lite version planned?

    A: That's something we'll think about after we get the full version out the door!


    Q: Could you post a list of all the songs in Real Racing somewhere here or in your site? I'm loving them!

    A: Glad you like the music! The three songs we've revealed so far are
    Breaker Breaker by Slimey Things
    Black Regrets by Jackson United
    Drive Real Fast by Assisted Living


    Q: Which type of handling is it: arcadey or simlike?

    A: Definitely more simlike than arcadey, but not so simlike that only hardened real-life racing drivers can play it ;)


    Q: Also, any plans to integrate interactive weather effects, eg, rain than affects road traction?

    A: The first version won't have weather effects that affect racing conditions. This is one of the many features that we talked about and would like to include, but we also want to launch the game and it would have drawn out the development time further. It's something we'll consider in the future.
     

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